Just under four hours before LSU Women’s Basketball’s Sweet 16 matchup with UCLA, The Washington Post published an article about Head Coach Kim Mulkey.

According to Mulkey, during her NCAA Tournament pre-game press conference, the reporter who wrote the story Kent Babb has been trying to contact her for two years in hopes of interviewing her for the piece.

Coach Mulkey told media she declined to do an interview for the story because she was not a fan of the “hit job” Babb wrote about LSU Football Head Coach Brian Kelly in 2022.

With no sit-down interview with Mulkey, the reporter then reached out to LSU on Tuesday, March 19 as the LSU Women’s Basketball team was at the height of preparations for their first game of the NCAA tournament with “more than a dozen questions,” Mulkey said.

Babb gave LSU and Mulkey a deadline of Thursday, March 21 to respond to these questions, which was the day before the team was scheduled to tip off against Rice.

Mulkey also said in the press conference that multiple former players contacted her to let her know the reporter reached out to them and offered to let them stay anonymous if they would say “negative things” about her for the story.

“This is exactly why people don’t trust journalists and the media anymore,” Mulkey said.

Before the article was published, it seemed Mulkey expected it to include untrue statements about her.

“I have hired the best defamation law firm in the country,” Mulkey said. “I will sue The Washington Post if they publish a false story about me.”

Talks about the expected article had not appeared to phase Mulkey’s team in their first two March Madness games, however, as they beat Rice 70-60 and Middle Tennessee 83-56.

With their Sweet 16 matchup just three and a half hours away, The Washington Post published the article about Mulkey titled “The Kim Mulkey way: The LSU coach holds grudges, battles everyone — and keeps winning. But at what cost?” The article goes in depth about Mulkey’s personal life and her career.

It includes quotes from former players such as Brittney Griner, Kelli Griffin, Alexis Morris, Emily Neimann and Morghan Medlock about whether or not Mulkey treats players differently depending on their sexuality.

According to the article, Griffin, who played for Mulkey at Baylor from 2007-2010, said Mulkey “‘made [her] life hell’ by drawing attention to Griffin’s clothes and issuing a suspension that ultimately ended the player’s career. And she believes it started after Mulkey found out she was gay.”

On the other hand, Medlock, who the article says was in a relationship with Griffin, said “she never witnessed Mulkey mistreat Griffin or other gay athletes.”

In regards to Mulkey’s personal life, the narrative of the story surrounds the “grudges” she supposedly holds against anyone she feels is against her.

This includes Mulkey’s father, Les Mulkey, who the article says was unfaithful to Kim Mulkey’s mother while his daughters were in college. Although Kim Mulkey invited her father and his new wife to her wedding, the article says she refused to let him walk her down the aisle, and the two have not spoken since.

According to the article, Mulkey is also not speaking with her younger sister Tammy, who told The Washington Post a disagreement they had five or six years ago is to blame.

A final overarching theme of the article is how Mulkey’s physically and emotionally intense coaching style affected some former players over the years who viewed her drive to win as stronger than her desire to support them as individuals.

This take-no-prisoners attitude Mulkey has when coaching manifested in the form of weigh-ins in front of the team at Baylor, according to Griffin and another player.

The story also included an anecdote from former player Danielle Crockrom, who told The Washington Post Mulkey approached her and “collected a fistful of [her] jersey” at her first conditioning session as Baylor’ head coach.

However, Crockrom also said Mulkey’s intensity helped pull out “‘potential in [her] that [she] hadn’t even begun to scratch.'”

Despite the questionable timing of the publication of The Washington Post’s article, it did not seem to deter the Lady Tigers in their Sweet 16 matchup in Albany.

An hour and a half before tipoff, ESPN reporter Holly Rowe spoke with Mulkey and asked if she had read the article, to which she replied she did not know it had been published.

“You’re telling me something I didn’t know,” Mulkey said. “You’re the bearer of good news or bad news or however you want to look at it. Are you really surprised? Are you really surprised by the timing of it? I can tell you I haven’t read it, don’t know that I will read it. I’ll leave that up to my attorneys.”

The Los Angeles Times also added to the conversation about Kim Mulkey and her LSU program in a commentary piece published yesterday morning by Ben Bolch previewing their Sweet 16 matchup with UCLA.

According to Bolch’s story, “some might see this [matchup] as good versus evil. Right versus wrong. Inclusive versus divisive.”

The good, of course, being the UCLA program.

On one side of the spectrum Bolch creates in the piece, he paints the Lady Bruins as “wholesome,” operating in “saintly shadows” and “milk and cookies.”  While the Lady Tigers, on the other end, are more like “Louisiana hot sauce” and “dirty debutantes.”

Coach Kim Mulkey may not plan to read The Washington Post’s article aimed directly at her, but she did say in her post-game press conference she read what Bolch had to say about her team.

“Dirty debutantes? Are you kidding me?” Mulkey said. “I’m not going to let you talk about 18-21-year-old kids in that tone. It was even sexist for this reporter to say UCLA was milk and cookies. If you don’t think that’s sexism, you’re in denial.”

LSU ended up victorious over UCLA in a gritty game that resulted in a 78-69 win for the Purple and Gold. Now, after Iowa beat Colorado later this afternoon, LSU’s Elite 8 matchup is set to be a national championship rematch.

Tipoff between the Tigers and the Hawkeyes is set for Monday, April 1 in Albany.